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By GCN Staff

CDC seeks all-in-one tool for disease data tracking

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking for an all-in-one data tracking and analytics tool to help it meet the rising level of health care trend and emergency data it follows, according to a request for information it recently filed.

In a long wish-list of features, CDC said it was interested in ideas for a single platform that can “integrate, analyze, visualize and report on key surveillance, epidemiologic, laboratory, environmental and other types and sources of data during emergency or routine investigations in an efficient – and timely manner.”

The agency requires a high level of integration because in its role as the nation’s disease tracker, it supports “disease surveillance and epidemiologic investigation activities, laboratory testing, scenario modeling, intelligence gathering, environmental investigation and medical countermeasures deployment,” according to the RFI.

While the Centers can meet those requirements, it faces a number of challenges in doing so, including “many process-driven and technical challenges in [its] capacity to collect, integrate and analyze numerous data types and sources.”

Data integration and unification is a major selling point for acquiring new technology, according to the CDC request. The RFI points out that often lab testing for evidence of pathogens is often performed in multiple labs, multiple CIO offices and “throughout laboratory response network.” Additionally, lab results are “contained within and reported through a variety of IT systems. On top of that, “epidemiology related systems … have evolved independently of each other.” The list of dis-integration is a long one.

The envisioned platform would let CDC “standardize a core set of data elements across multiple surveillance programs and event responses to capture data in a consistent manner, as well as integrate new data types and unstructured data,” said CDC.

The platform would give CDC’s external partners near real-time access to event data through a secure interface and “enable infrequent and new users as well as experienced users to successfully operate the system with limited training.”